Melody
Princess Melody is the main character in Disney's 2000 direct-to-DVD feature film The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea, the sequel to the 1989 film in the saga. She is the daughter of Ariel and Prince Eric, and the only known grandchild of King Triton and Queen Athena. Background Personality Melody is sassy but well-mannered and has respect for her mother and others. Her curious and tomboyish nature leads her to collect all sorts of items from the sea, a parallel to her mother at age sixteen only in reverse. Her swimming proficiency and ability to hold her breath for long periods comes from her merfolk parentage. Largely because of her being half-mermaid, she was also seen as somewhat of an outcast, as evidenced by the guests at her twelfth birthday celebration shunning her. She is also shy around boys, becoming quite flustered when a merboy she found attractive tried befriending her in Atlantica. She later met him again after the wall was disintegrated, with both recognizing each other. Despite being tomboyish, she has a princess canopy bed and a girlish style bedroom. Physical Appearance Melody is a pretty, yet tomboyish 12-year old princess with a deep love of being barefoot. She has straight black hair, most often tied back with a green hair tie in a low ponytail, pink lips, and aqua blue eyes. She seems to have inherited a fairly even blend of traits from her parents. Most noticeable is her hair (the same color as her father's). She inherited her mother's eyes, nose, and facial structure. It is also possible that she inherited Ariel's beautiful singing voice, which is heard in "For A Moment", a duet between Melody and her mother. Eric also gave her his skin tone, smile, and thick eyebrows. Melody's hairstyle seems like a blend of both of her parents'. For most of the film, Melody is seen in her underclothes, which is a separate pair of white pantalettes and a white camisole; the pantalettes cover the bottom half of her stomach. As a baby, she was wearing a cute and very pretty pink and white dress and her bow also has the same colors. While in mermaid form, she retains her camisole, but her pantalettes and legs are replaced by an orange-red tail; her navel is also visible. It is odd that the merteens she meets don't pay notice she does not wear a typical seashell bikini top like other mermaids. She also has a pink ballgown and a yellow casual dress both with short puffy sleeves. Since she found it, she wears her locket that has her name on it. She usually walks barefoot and never wearing shoes because she prefers barefoot. Like her mother, Ariel, Melody loves exposing her bare feet with five toes, showing her bare soles and wiggling her five toes. She also loves playing with her bare feet and her five toes. Powers and Abilities Due to being half-mermaid, Melody is a skilled swimmer. She also had inherited some of her mother's superhuman traits, namely speed and strength, the latter of which is demonstrated by her scaling an ice wall with little problems late into the film. She also inherited superhuman endurance, as evidenced by her not being crushed into oblivion when forcibly changed back into a human by Morgana despite the depth she was at. She is also able to speak to aquatic animals, which is implied in the movie to be due to her mermaid heritage as her talking to Sebastian resulted in her being mocked by the guests. She may have also inherited her mother's aquakinesis, as in the ending of the movie, she and Ariel both proceeded to cause a wave to form from behind them. Role in the film When Melody is an infant, her parents sail out to sea and is presented to King Triton. When the proud new grandfather sees her he instantly loves her, calling her "His precious Melody", and gives her a seashell locket, which, when opened, plays the melody of "Down to the Sea" and shows a moving image of the underwater city of Atlantica. The celebration is interrupted by Ursula's sister, Morgana, who threatens to feed Melody to the shark Undertow if Triton does not hand over the trident, which Triton almost agrees to do in order to save her. He ends up not having to when Ariel grabs Eric's cutlass and cuts the hatch to knock out Morgana and he retrieves Melody. When Morgana escapes, Ariel decides that until Morgana is found, the sea would be too dangerous for Melody and vows to keep all knowledge of the sea from her, including her grandfather, late grandmother, and her aunts. Ariel, heartbroken, gives her father the locket he had given to Melody. A baby Melody looks back at her sad grandfather who then asks Sebastian to watch over Melody (just like he had done for Ariel). Melody grows up banned from entering the sea, and isn't told the reason why. This causes a misunderstanding to exist between her and Ariel, who refuses to explain the truth to Melody, making Melody believe that Ariel hated the sea and could not or would not understand her love of it. By her 12th birthday, she had been regularly secretly sneaking out to swim in the sea against her mother and father's wishes. When Melody finds her locket on the day of her 12th birthday she finds her name on it and the image of Atlantica when she opens it. Melody begins to question Ariel as she had told her Atlantica was "just an old fish tale." Ariel, however, panics when she hears this and simply yells at Melody for her disobedience that it was dangerous in the sea (like how her father had yelled at her). Melody ends the argument by telling her mother "How would you know? You've never even been in it!" Melody then runs off from her room, and both Ariel and Eric decide that they can no longer hide the truth from her. However, Melody runs away from home before they can tell her the truth. Melody eventually is coerced by Undertow to go and meet Morgana, who uses Melody's love of the sea against her. Morgana promises her that she will be a mermaid forever if Melody will retrieve the trident from Triton, claiming that he stole it from Morgana. Wanting to be a mermaid forever she agrees to get it, not knowing she would be stealing from her grandfather. Morgana then gets a potion and drops it on Melody's foot. A green light then goes around her foot and spreads to both of her legs. She is then lifted in the air as her legs change. She is then set back down, and the green light disappears, revealing her tail. Unknown to Melody was the fact that, as the granddaughter of King Triton, she had the power to retrieve the trident from its resting place when Triton did not have it on his person. While searching for the trident, Melody befriends a penguin named Tip and a walrus named Dash, and they join her in her search. They manage to sneak into the Atlantican royal palace and make off with the trident. Melody returns to Morgana at the same time that her mother Ariel, who's been turned back into a mermaid, arrives. Melody was shocked and upset saying "All this time...and you never told me?", when Ariel told her she wanted to protect her, Melody angrily says "by fencing me in!?", believing her mother was ashamed of her mermaid heritage.Before Ariel has a chance to fully explain, Melody, angered at Ariel's decision to hide Melody's mermaid heritage, building the wall to keep Melody from the sea and for lying to her all these years, gives Morgana the trident. Afterwards, Morgana reveals her true colors to Melody and also tells her that she had stolen from her grandfather. She grabs Melody and put her in an ice prison. As she is trapped, Melody begins to blame herself for this and starts to cry. Soon afterwards, the sun sets and Morgana's spell on Melody wears off. Melody begins to grunt and moan, as she doesn't understand what is happening to her. She continues to scream as her transformation happens. Melody's tail splits and forms into her legs, with her pantalettes on. When the transformation finishes, Melody yells for help, but immediately starts to choke. Melody then tries to find a way out while she is holding her breath. She stops and starts banging on the ice. No longer able to hold her breath, Melody becomes unconscious starts to drown. Tip and Dash trick Undertow, who has been restored to his original form, into ramming into the ice. They look down and see that she in on the floor, still not breathing. They quickly take her to the surface, where she then wakes up and coughs out water. A battle ensues, which is eventually ended when Melody retrieves the trident from Morgana. Morgana grabs Melody's foot and tries to take the trident but Melody pierces the trident through one of her tentacles. She throws Triton his trident. Morgana pushes her off afterwards which sent her falling and screaming. Tip and Dash save her and she becomes unconscious once more. When Triton catches the trident, he proceeds to encase Morgana in ice, and falls in the water. When Melody wakes up, she apologizes to her mother for her actions, and tells her she hoped that she'd be a better mermaid than a girl, while Ariel and Eric apologize for lying to Melody about her mermaid heritage, keeping her from the sea and not telling her the truth about Morgana. Ariel then tells her that it didn't matter if she had fins or feet. That they loved her for what she was on the inside, their very brave little girl, and her grandfather decides to add in "Just like your mother." Melody then runs and hugs her happy grandfather, who offers to allow her to be a mermaid permanently. Melody however turns it down, as she had thought of a better solution. Opting instead to destroy the barrier wall that separated the royal palace from the sea in order to reunite both sides of her family, where they could all be together. It's also hinted Melody and the merboy, Alex, are starting to like each other more. In the film, Melody sings in the songs "For a Moment", "Tip and Dash", and the finale song "Here on the Land and Sea". Melody is also a playable character in the PlayStation game, ''The Little Mermaid 2'', which is based on the two movies. Gallery See Melody/Gallery. Trivia *Melody is the first Disney character to be the offspring of a Disney Princess. *It should be noted that Melody's bedroom is the same room as Ariel's guestroom when she first took human form and was staying with Prince Eric. *Although Melody inherited a lot of Ariel's traits in both personality and appearance, her mixture of black hair, thick eyebrows, and blue eyes make her a perfect blend of her parents. *Despite the unpopularity of the sequel, Melody has a large fanbase. In fact, Tara Strong says Melody is her favorite character that she's ever done the voice for. *Melody means "song" in Greek. *Since it was Morgana using Ursula's magic that turned Melody into a mermaid, it is unknown if orange-red would be her natural mermaid tail color. *In a rather amusing coincidence, Tara Strong would later voice two of Ariel's sisters in the prequel The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning. *Although Melody is a princess by birth, she isn't included as an official Disney Princess in the franchise, because of her young age and status as a heroine of a direct-to-video film. However, her mother is. **On a related note, not counting Descendants, Melody is so far the only character to be the offspring of one of the Disney Princesses. *Melody is the only known grandchild of King Triton. *Like her mother, Melody has two friends, Tip and Dash, but unlike Sebastian and Flounder, Tip is a penguin, while Dash is a walrus (a marine bird and marine mammal opposed to a crustacean and a tropical fish). *Having taken over for her mother from [[The Little Mermaid|the first Little Mermaid film]], Melody is the third offspring of a predecessor's main character to take over as the protagonist in a sequel, with the first being Nicky Ferris (taking over from Sharon McKendrick in The Parent Trap II), the second being Kiara (taking over from Simba in The Lion King II: Simba's Pride), the fourth being Scamp (taking over from Lady in Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure), the fifth being Jane (taking over from Wendy in Return to Never Land), the sixth being Patch (taking over from both Pongo and Perdita in 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure), and the seventh being Sam Flynn from Tron: Legacy (taking over from Kevin Flynn). *The first dress Melody is seen wearing is pink, which is the same color of the first dress her mother wore in the first film. *Melody's dream was the opposite of her mother's; while Ariel was a mermaid who wanted to be a human, Melody is a human who wanted to be a mermaid. *Melody also shares the same worries for not being a mermaid, and she wishes to tell her mom what she feels, but she says to Sebastian she would never understand her. In the first film, Ariel wishes to be human, and she tells her worries to Flounder and also tells Sebastian that her father would never understand her fascination with the human world. *Melody also inherited her mother's speed. While Sebastian tries to convince her to return home for her birthday party at the palace, he says, after Melody goes into the water again, that she's like her mother. In the first film, he tried to tell her mother to take her head out of the clouds and convince her to not think about the human world. *Melody finds the musical locket she had gotten when she was a baby, and her mother finds the music box of her late mother; they also recognize the melody. *Melody makes the same back pose when she is transformed into a mermaid, just as her mother did in the first movie. *It is unknown why Melody was unconscious after she landed on Dash when Morgana pushed her and she recovers in her father's arms just like Ariel in the third movie, when she was hit by Marina. Melody was conscious when she landed on Dash, but when Morgana's lair and the icicles collapsed, she was unconscious when Tip pushed them both out the way. *Melody is the first sequel hero/heroine who runs away from home to see another world like the ocean. The second is Scamp, who runs away from home to live the junkyard dog life. Jane from Tarzan isn't included, since she didn't run away to be in the jungle. *Coincidentally, Tara Strong, Melody's voice actress, later voiced the Ariel parody character Princess Clara from Drawn Together, who resembled an adult version of Melody in all but eyebrows. **In addition, Strong would later voice the character Elisa from Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, who, coincidentally, had a sister/stronger alter ego named Ursula. *Melody's hairstyle for most of the film appears to be almost similar to child Ariel from the flashback sequence of the TV series' episode "The Evil Manta". *She does share some similarities with Kiara and Scamp. **The three of them are the protagonists of their films. **They are stubborn and headstrong. **They all runaway from home for certain reasons. ***Melody ran away because she wanted to be part of the ocean world. ***Scamp ran away to live the junkyard dog life. ***Kiara ran away to find Kovu after her father Simba exiled him. **They have a strained relationship with their parents for Melody (her mother), for Kiara and Scamp (their fathers), but make amends with them at the end of their films. **The only two differences are that Kiara and Scamp have a love interest in their films, while Melody does not. Melody and Scamp both have socialized and interacted with main antagonists of their films (Morgana and Buster), while Kiara only briefly interacted with Zira. Category:Characters Category:Kids Category:Pre-teens Category:Main Characters Category:Females Category:Merpeople Category:Heroines Category:Humans